1 Corinthians 10:4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.
Exodus 17:-2-7 Therefore the people contended with Moses, and said, “Give us water, that we may drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you contend with me? Why do you tempt the Lord?” And the people thirsted there for water, and the people complained against Moses, and said, “Why is it you have brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me!” And the Lord said to Moses, “Go on before the people, and take with you some of the elders of Israel. Also take in your hand your rod with which you struck the river, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb; and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.” And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. So he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the contention of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
Psalm 11:4-5 The Lord is in His holy temple, The Lord’s throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men. The Lord tests the righteous, but the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates.
The children of Israel are facing yet another test, this one, even more severe than hunger — dehydration — which, unabated, quickly leads to a miserable death. Yet, now, every day they are also seeing the miracles of God, who is feeding them regularly with manna, and surrounding them by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Once again, they fail the test, even in the midst of their daily witness of miracles. So even though the test is more severe, the evidence for trust is that much greater.
Are some of us also asking this question, “Is the Lord among us or not?” “Is He seeing what’s happening to me, or are His eyes shut to it?” (“His eyelids test the sons of men..”) As a pastor, I’m often faced with this question — “Where is God?” Most often the good and true answer is, “He is testing you!” And I think of the testing the children of Israel faced in their wilderness wanderings. Over and over again, the Lord provided for their needs. This time Moses strikes the rock — and out pours living water!
Don’t allow your heart to become hardened in these days no matter how severe the test. As you endure His testing He will touch your heart once again so that His spring of living water may flow through you to this dying and desperate world. Yeshua (Jesus), the Rock of our salvation was struck for the sins of the world, and He promised those who trust Him that living water would flow from our inmost being. And God’s eyes are never really shut. So the question, “Is the Lord among us or not?” will repeat Israel’s sad mistake at Meribah.
Just realize and accept that you’re being tested. You will please Him with your faith and His living water will flow from you.
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]With the war breaking out in Ukraine there is a lot of speculation that we are in the end of days with the apocalypse on the horizon. Everyone who knows me knows I’m not a gloom and doomer, that I do acknowledge the days we are living in, but remain expectant and focused on the birth of the Kingdom.
The children of Israel were delivered into the hands of the Philistines for 40 years for doing evil in the sight of YHVH. Then a wonderful event takes place: an announcement to a barren and childless woman that she will conceive and bear a son. The announcement is given by one who is called “malach-YHVH”, literally “Angel (of) YHVH. This messenger, in two separate appearances, reveals God’s commandments concerning the boy to be born. At the angel’s behest, the couple offers a sacrifice to YHVH, then they ask to be told his name.
This interesting passage speaks of a time when Israel had no blacksmiths to make weapons and was without any armament to defend themselves. The enemy had succeeded to disarm Israel by removing their weapons, and those who forged them! He’s attempting the same tactic today.
From the moment we were conceived we began aging, growing older by the day. We may slow down the physical aging process by exercising, eating right and other natural techniques – but we cannot ultimately stop it. This mortal flesh, our outer man, is “wasting away” and moving toward decay as we await the immortal bodies promised us in the Resurrection.
In his letter to the Colossians, Paul reveals the prophetic nature of Shabbat and the Biblical Feasts as “shadows of things to come”, whose substance is the Messiah Yeshua (Jesus). My study of the feasts therefore seeks to discover their relevance to the Lord, His identity, work, and purpose for my life in relationship to Him.
A few years ago, I was in a debate with an atheist who had a legal background, and the Lord gave me a revelation about the tactics of the enemy. At Yeshua’s first coming, his tactic was to destroy the infant before He could grow up; [Revelation 12:4-5]. After the Lord’s death and resurrection, Satan continued his direct assault by attacking the church through persecution, which lasted through the first three centuries. The tactics of the enemy were to destroy any “eyewitnesses” of God’s goodness.
An interesting parallel exists between these two passages of scripture: Isaiah 53:9 and Acts 3:15. Isaiah renders the “death” of the messiah in the plural form, “deaths” (“motav”). Acts renders the life of the Prince of Life as “lives” (“chaim”). Some scholars suggest that the plurality of the word death indicates a violent death this servant would suffer, and that making the noun plural is a way of emphasizing the terrible intensity of his experience. Jewish counter-missionaries suggest that the “death” in plural shows that the suffering servant is not an individual man, but a group of people, specifically the nation of Israel, thus denying that the passage refers to an individual messianic figure.